Kobe’s stolen jersey returned for ceremony at high school

ARDMORE, Pa.  (AP) — Kobe Bryant’s high school jersey spent more time in China of late than it did hanging on the wall of the gym named in honor of the school’s career leading scorer.

Bryant’s retired No. 33 jersey was stolen in 2017 from Lower Merion High School’s campus and eventually bought by a collector in China. Suspicious the jersey was stolen, the Kobe collector contacted the school and helped return the keepsake to suburban Philadelphia, a process already underway before Bryant was killed Sunday in a helicopter crash.


The uniform was at last back Saturday where it belonged — unveiled under a spotlight by Bryant’s cousin, his old high school coach, and a former teammate at Bryant Gymnasium.

“Good timing,” Lower Merion coach Gregg Downer said. “That was kind of an iconic moment when the spotlight went on that jersey. It was just tremendous. It was major irony, almost, how we’ve been waiting for that jersey for a long time. For a long time we didn’t know where it was. To have it back, it’s a fitting ending to a tough week.”

Outside of Los Angeles, no place was as connected with Bryant as Lower Merion. At a tribute Friday night in LA, the entire Lakers lineup was introduced the same way: “From Lower Merion High School, No. 8, Kobe Bryant.” Golfer Justin Thomas wore a Bryant No. 33 LM jersey at a tournament. The Sixers had the 33 logo on the court this week at their first home since Bryant was killed.

While NBA teams spent the ensuing days holding observances for Bryant, Lower Merion finally played its first home game and celebrated the biggest star to ever play for the Aces. Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others killed were all remembered in the pregame ceremony.

“Because of Kobe, Lower Merion High School is known all over the globe,” principal Sean Hughes told the crowd. “Despite his international fame, Kobe kept very close to our hearts. He returned here to meet with beloved (English teachers), and of course, coach Downer. He helped make this gym the wonderful facility it is. He was a strong supporter, not only of our basketball teams, but all of Aces Nation.”

The gym was packed to at least the 1,600 capacity, and students — some asking this week at school for $40 for the $3 ticket — wore black T-shirts that read “The Heartbeat of Aces Nation” with a 33 inside an ace. Sixers coach Brett Brown’s son plays on the team, connections far removed from the A-listers that packed Staples Center a night earlier in a stirring ceremony. At Lower Merion, a former student sang the national anthem. A teacher unveiled a portrait she had painted of Bryant. School administrators gave speeches.

Once the ball tipped, it was business as usual, without the 24-second shot clock and eight-second backcourt violations NBA teams have been performing to salute Bryant’s two pro uniform numbers. Lower Merion did hold 33 seconds of silence, and former teammates (and Bryant’s cousin, John Cox) gathered in a mournful circle at midcourt.

In some ways, the Aces’ 42-37 overtime win over Souderton seemed as normal as Bryant’s presence in the gym. He’s just a name between Carly Brown and Mike Venafra on a banner listing the Aces’ career 1,000-point scorers. A photo of Bryant holding the 1996 Class AAAA state championship trophy was on the wall, blending in with dozens of other great players and teams from program history.

There was even some levity during video highlights of his playing career when Bryant was shown reminiscing about his high school days, saying “the first year I got there, we went like 4 and 40 or something. We were terrible.”



Cirilo Perez drove nearly 2½ hours from Heightsville, Maryland, to pay his respects to Bryant at the memorial in front of the gym. He didn’t have a ticket to the game, he simply wanted to be part of the day devoted to his favorite player. Perez wore a Bryant jersey and left his Lakers hat at the scene, which was loaded with basketballs, cards and signs left from Bryant fans near and far.

“He put in the work and brought that blue-collar mentality that a lot of people connect with, not only here, but around the world,” Perez said. “He found a way to connect.”

Carter Knight, an assistant coach at Souderton, gathered the Indians for a team photo at the site.

“It’s real right now,” Knight said. “We’ve been talking about the ‘Mamba Mentality’ since the start of the season, so it’s crazy that we’re here today. We’ve been harping on that the entire season, that mental toughness and what Kobe brought and what he stands for.”

His former guidance counselor attended the game, recalling how Bryant’s Toyota Land Cruiser was often parked in the teacher’s lot long before the school day started.

“His smile was the greatest thing I remember,” Frank Hartwell said. “He was just an inspiration to so many, it wasn’t all about himself. He was here before school every day working on his skills. He wasn’t just in here shooting, he was working on his moves.”

Hartwell said Bryant even talked to him as he considered his biggest move — making the jump to the NBA straight from Lower Merion.

“I gave him the pros and cons but I told him, ‘It’s up to you.’ I think he made the right decision,” Hartwell said.

Bryant made the right call, starting with a Mamba Mentality that took hold in Lower Merion long before it became a marketing catchphrase.

“It was a chase of excellence like I’ve never seen,” Downer said.

source: AP

Strip down, saddle up: Naked bikers hit Philadelphia streets

PHILADELPHIA  – Hundreds of bicyclists have been caught with their pants down — and their shirts and underwear off, too.

The cyclists gathered in a Philadelphia park on Saturday to disrobe before saddling up and setting off on the annual Philly Naked Bike Ride.

About 3,000 riders pedal a 10-mile (16-kilometer) course around the City of Brotherly Love while taking in sights including Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, organizers say.

Some riders wear their birthday suits while others flaunt their underwear or sport just a splash of body paint and glitter.

Melanie and James O’Connor, who painted each other’s nude body in multiple colors, were riding for the seventh time.

“We run around naked a lot,” he said.

The couple met at the 2012 ride and have been together since.


“I took a picture of him the moment we met, and seven years later we’re still naked,” she said.

The ride is to promote positive body image, advocate for the safety of cyclists and protest dependence on fossil fuels, a major issue for Oren Roth-Eisenberg, who participates every year.

“I call it my Christmas, the happiest day of the year,” he said, while having a message advocating for less gas consumption painted on his torso by his wife. “It’s the intersection of the happiest day and the most important thing.”

The Philly Naked Bike Ride used to be held in September but was moved up to August because the nude and scantily clad participants complained about chilly weather. /gsg

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Starbucks to shut US stores for ‘racial-bias education’

Starbucks will close stores and corporate offices across the United States on May 29 to conduct “racial-bias education,” the company announced Tuesday, following outrage over the arrest of two black men in one of its cafes.

It was the latest bid by the behemoth coffee chain to recover from last Thursday’s incident in Philadelphia, which was captured on video and went viral, viewed millions of times.

The video posted on Twitter by a Starbucks client shows uniformed police questioning and then handcuffing the two men, who offer no resistance, as a white client repeatedly asks an officer, “What’d they do? What’d they do?”

Starbucks said more than 8,000 stores would be closed on the afternoon of May 29 and training provided to nearly 175,000 employees, and incorporated going forward.

CEO Kevin Johnson, who has also apologized, said the company was “committed to being a part of the solution” and that he had been in Philadelphia “listening to the community, learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it.”

“Closing our stores for racial bias training is just one step in a journey that requires dedication from every level of our company and partnerships in our local communities,” he said.

The curriculum will be designed “to address implicit bias, promote conscious inclusion, prevent discrimination and ensure everyone inside a Starbucks store feels safe and welcome,” the company said in a statement.

Philadelphia police said they received a 911 call from a Starbucks worker who said the men were trespassing, after refusing to buy anything. Police said officers had “politely” asked the two to leave before finally arresting them.

They reportedly asked first to use the bathroom, but were told it was only for paying customers.

The two men’s lawyer Lauren Wimmer told a CBS affiliate in Philadelphia that they had been waiting for a third man to arrive for a business meeting.

Indignities, suspicion 

Starbucks declined to prosecute and the men were released.

Ex-US president Barack Obama’s former attorney general Eric Holder and Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer who has exonerated innocent prisoners on death row, will be among those experts consulted on the curriculum, Starbucks said.

“Being treated with respect and dignity at a place of public accommodation is an essential aspect of full citizenship,” tweeted NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which fights for racial justice and which is also being consulted.

“The reality is that most black Americans regularly face the indignities of being treated with suspicion,” it added.

“This is a crucial next step in fighting implicit bias,” tweeted Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, another expert consulted.

The woman who posted the video, Melissa DePino, said a Starbucks employee called police because the men had not ordered anything, while they waited for a friend.

“All the other white (people) are wondering why it’s never happened to us when we do the same thing,” she tweeted.

“The men were sitting there peacefully quietly and they were put in handcuffs and they were walked out of the store, humiliated, embarrassed and put in a patrol car,” DePino subsequently told MSNBC television.

The video drew widespread attention. Drummer Questlove of the group Roots tweeted a question: “Waiting in a Starbucks while black is a crime?”

Starbucks has also launched a review of training and practices to make reforms where necessary, and once completed, this will be made available to other companies, including their licensee partners, it said.

The company has more than 25,000 coffee shops around the world. NVG

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

US cabbie gets $1,000 tip for two-minute drive

NEW YORK, United States – A quick chat and a two-minute drive is all it took for an American cab driver to be tipped nearly $1,000.

Oumar Maiga, a night-shift driver from Philadelphia, was so stunned he waited a month for the credit card transaction to clear, convinced the mystery benefactor might claim a mix-up.

His boss, Freedom Taxi owner Everett Abitbol, said it was the largest tip he had ever seen for such a small fare: $4.31 for a brief, late-night pick-up in downtown Philadelphia.

Maiga picked up the anonymous passenger and the two struck up a conversation.

The two exchanged pleasantries about the driver’s busy schedule in the run up to Christmas and the customer said he knew being a cabbie was a tough job, Abitbol told AFP.

“He said, ‘hey, I’m going to take care of you’ and when our driver looked down he said ‘sir, I think you made a mistake’ but he said ‘that’s what I want to give you, I know what I did’.”

Abitbol said the tip couldn’t have happened to a nicer man, adding that Maiga had been with the company since it opened in 2011.

“He’s a family guy, a very, very nice driver,” said Abitbol. “You can always rely on him.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Clinton casts her ballot: ‘It is the most humbling feeling’

CHAPPAQUA, N.Y.  — Seeking to become the nation’s first female president, Hillary Clinton cast her ballot Tuesday and settled down to wait for the country to make its choice.

The Democratic nominee and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, voted at an elementary school near their home in suburban New York before greeting supporters waiting for her outside.

“It is the most humbling feeling,” she said of voting for herself for president. “I know how much responsibility goes with this.”

It was a relatively calm moment Tuesday compared with Clinton’s hectic final few days day on the campaign trail. The former secretary of state and New York senator dashed through battleground states, encouraged get-out-the-vote efforts and campaigned with a star-studded cast of celebrity supporters.

It was an election eve punctuated by an emotional rally in Philadelphia with her husband, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, as well as performances by Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen, and capped by Lady Gaga, who serenaded thousands of supporters before the Clintons took the stage for a 1 a.m. rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. It ended with cheering fans greeting her at the airport back in New York when she landed in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

After the divisive rhetoric of the campaign against Republican Donald Trump, Clinton sought to offer a positive closing message on Monday. She told supporters in Pittsburgh they “can vote for a hopeful, inclusive, bighearted America.” In a buoyant mood, she also greeted voters who cried out “we love you,” smiling back: “I love you all, too … absolutely.”

Some good news boosted Clinton’s spirits in the final moments of the campaign. On Sunday, FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress, informing lawmakers the bureau had found no evidence in its hurried review of newly discovered emails to warrant criminal charges against Clinton.

The late October announcement of a fresh email review rocked the race just as Clinton appeared to be pulling away from Trump in several battleground states. The update from the FBI may have come too late for some: In the nine days between Comey’s initial statement until his “all clear” announcement on Sunday, nearly 24 million people cast early ballots. That’s about 18 percent of the expected total votes for president.

But campaign aides projected confidence in the final moments. They said they felt good about Nevada, where they said support for Clinton in early voting was strong. They were encouraged by the strong Latino turnout in Florida and felt they took a strong lead in Michigan and Pennsylvania into Election Day, when the bulk of votes are cast in those states.

Leading up to Election Day, Clinton made stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and New Hampshire — often flanked by star guests. Jay Z and Beyonce performed with pant-suited backup dancers in Cleveland. James Taylor serenaded New Hampshire voters and Katy Perry sang “Roar” in Philadelphia.

She also campaigned with Khizr Khan, the father of a slain U.S. Army officer whose indictment of Trump at the Democratic National Convention was an emotional high point for Clinton’s party.

Her last two days on the campaign trail felt almost like a Clinton family reunion, with some of her closest confidants jumping on the campaign plane for her final hours. Even Huma Abedin, her embattled personal aide caught up in the email controversy, jumped on the plane for the midnight rally in Raleigh. TVJ

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net